Finding Comfort in Familiar Things
by Shubatra
Summary: Ven decides he wants to adopt a pet, without asking the Master. Aqua is prepared to try and let him down easy, but his definition of 'pet' leaves her a little surprised, and a little closer to the younger Apprentice.


**Notes:** So Braig/Xigbar talks about killing Ven's goldfish. Apparently that's enough inspiration for me!

My friends Kia and Erica have headcanon for Terra that he was _constantly_ bringing home stray puppies and kittens when he was younger and trying to adopt them, which Eraqus would never let him do (he also named them all Fluffy). Of course in our ramblings the question of Ven having or wanting pets came up; I'd also headcanoned Ven wanting a fuzzy companion, and Eraqus putting his foot down. But, boys will be boys, and Ven's actually fairly ingenious at getting what he wants as long as it doesn't hurt anyone... Combine that with Xigbar's line in a recent 3D trailer, and you get this idea. More family fluff, this time with the only female of the bunch. I do love me some fambly tiems.

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"Hey Aqua, come check out my pets!"

The blue-haired young woman looked up from her book as the twelve-year-old blond ran up to her, a look of mild apprehension crossing her face. "Pets?" she repeated, not really believing what she was hearing.

"Yeah!" Ven's face was alight with his usual enthusiasm, eyes wide and shining with excitement as he skidded to a stop in front of her. The Ven in front of her was a completely different boy than the one that had appeared on their doorstep over a year ago, but occasionally Aqua felt like this new Ven was going to run them all ragged with his pretty much boundless energy. While that certainly made him more than able to keep up with both her and Terra in training, even if he wasn't close to their level yet, on other occasions... well, a couple of rooms in the castle had gotten a new coat of paint more than once in the past few months. He never did anything maliciously, but that exuberance just led to the occasional disaster.

And it felt like another one was coming. Aqua stuck a bookmark in the pages and set the book aside, turning to jump lightly off the stone wall she'd been sitting on to read, preparing to give him another gentle lecture. "Ven, you know the Master doesn't allow us to keep pets-"

"I know, Aqua! That's why this is so perfect!" The expression on his face was too much; after what he'd been through, whatever it had been, all three of them felt the need to try and make up for it. Ven never asked them to or took advantage of whatever they did - he was about the most well-intentioned kid she'd ever met - but when his ideas ran away with him, there was just no stopping it. The easiest thing for her to do would be to go along with him for now and find out the exact situation, and tailor whatever let down she had to give to what he was actually doing.

Aqua sighed, shaking her head a little and moving into step next to him. "All right Ven, I'll go - but remember, you probably won't be able to keep them."

That grin didn't go away, though, and Ven started trotting off further into the grounds, not into the castle as she was expecting. "Don't worry, Master Eraqus won't be able to say anything against them!"

She sighed, letting Ven pull ahead of her as he raised a hand to her temple. Aqua well remembered the numerous, numerous instances of the Master denying Terra's repeated pleas to keep an orphaned puppy or kitten he'd found, no matter how big his eyes got or how adorable the animal in question was. Master Eraqus was a good man, but he wasn't one of those people who fawned all over animals the way Terra or even herself was. If Ven had caught the pet bug from Terra, though, they would probably never hear the end of it, as those far-too-large blue eyes of his would follow each and every single one of them as they silently implored them to let him keep whatever fluffy creature he'd found. They'd never be able to get away from it.

Ever.

She did wonder where he was taking her, though - Terra had always tried to hide his foundlings under his bed or in his closet, somehow not realizing that that was the _first_ place the Master would look, but Ven was leading her along the paths out to the stargazing cliff. _Please let him not have a nest of baby birds somewhere out here - please don't let him have_ touched _them if he does, we'll never get the mother bird to take them back-_

"Here!" his voice interrupted her reverie, and Aqua refocused her eyes to see Ven standing along the edge of one of the ponds that lined the walks, and confusion settled over her as she closed the distance between them. There were no animals visible, no nests that she could see or boxes for any to sleep in. Ven's grin seemed to grow as he saw her expression clearly, and he turned to the water and sank down into a crouch on the balls of his feet, dropping a hand down to trail the tips of his fingers in the pond. "See? Right here."

Aqua knelt next to him, and gasped quietly. Six rather large koi fish, all with different color patterns, had emerged from beneath the protective lily pads that dotted the surface and were approaching the edge that they were perched on. Ven dug his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a plastic bag filled with bits of fluff that she was pretty sure had been his roll at dinner the night before, and he poured some into his hand and started scattering it on the water. The fish were obviously used to this, darting after the scraps the moment they landed, and one even leaned up just a little above the surface to catch one in mid-air. When Ven paused in his feeding, they crowded back up against the brink, little mouths opening and closing as if silently imploring for more food.

"Terra told me how he used to bring dogs and stuff home. I'd kind of like a dog, but I know the Master won't let us." He threw another handful in, watching the fish chase after it. "But I was studying out here one day and part of my sandwich fell in, and they all just swam after it like their tails were on fire. So I started bringing them more bread, and now they always come out when I show up."

"So... You _aren't_ trying to raise a gaggle of baby birds on your own, right?"

Ven chuckled at her slightly apprehensive question. "Nah - that might be fun to try, though." The chuckle turned into a full-on laugh when her color visibly paled. "I like birds, but I know that's a bad idea, they're really delicate. And I know not to touch any, so don't worry about that. But I... just kind of wanted something to take care of. It feels... familiar, somehow."

Once again, Aqua had to wonder about his past, watching him closely as he threw another bunch of crumbs in and the fish darted after them. There were all these clues to where he'd come from and what had happened to him, but they were so vague that putting them together into a definite shape was impossible. But she could make an educated guess that he hadn't been alone, that he had someone or something depending on him, even just a little. Who or what that had been, though... there was no telling.

But she smiled as she watched him. Ven looked at peace out here next to the pond, where even in his happy moments there was still a slight bit of tension and apprehension in his expression and body language. The fright and isolationism he'd shown when he'd awoken had diminished almost to nothing in the year and a half since, but it wasn't - quite - entirely gone yet, manifesting as an overeager need to please and a slight desperation for approval. This was the first time she could remember seeing him completely relaxed, entirely at ease. She closed her eyes as she made a wish deep in her heart that this would be just the first time of many thereafter, no matter if he ever recovered his memory or not.

"Well," she said with a smile, opening her eyes once more to meet his, "as long as the fish _stay_ in the pond, I don't think the Master will mind this." His own smile met hers as she looked down to the water, trailing her own fingertips in and laughing just a bit when one of the fish tried to nibble on her nail. "Now why don't you tell me about them?"

He grinned once more, pointing at the one that was still inspecting her nail, a large one with golden scales. "That's John, he's the pushiest of them. He'll eat everything I throw in if I let him, but I'm getting pretty good at distracting him so the others can get some. That one's Robin." This time the fish was white with several black scales dotting his back, giving him a stippled look. "He's kind of in charge I think, the others seem to listen to him more and follow him around. And that's Alan," he continued, indicating a white one with orange patches over his head and tail. "He's kind of shy, but he's really fast. And Tuck's really slow, but he kind of follows Alan around, and Richard seems to be second in command after Robin. Will's the smallest and he kind of gets bullied by all the others," he finished, indicating a rather fat silver one, another white one with black spots over his back rather like a cow, and a small silvery one with just a few black scales that was indeed much smaller than the rest and spent most of its time hiding under one of the lily pads. Ven emptied the last of his feed into the water, and Richard and John started butting their little heads over who would get the lion's share, leaving room for Will to swim out of hiding and grab his own meal. "I don't know if they're all boys - how can you tell on a fish?"

Aqua had to shake her head at that. "I don't know. There might not be a way to easily find out."

"I guess it doesn't matter that much." Indeed, Ven didn't seem at all perturbed by the thought that he might have misnamed some of them, settling back into a proper seated position and wrapping his arms around his knees to watch the fish more comfortably. "I got the names from a book in the Master's library. Do you really think he'll be okay with this?"

The look he gave her when he asked the question made her heart break just a little - that fear was back, his expression telling her probably more than he would ever know just how much he didn't want the Master to think badly of him. He was trying so hard, training more than she or Terra had when they'd first begun, rarely taking moments for himself - so much so that Master Eraqus had more than once _ordered_ him to quit working for the day. This was the first thing that Aqua could think of that Ven had wanted for _himself_, for anything approaching a selfish reason, and he was so afraid of being denied even this one little request.

_It's not hurting anything... They were here already. He just wants to think of them as his own._

In that instant, she made up her mind. Scooting a little closer to the boy, Aqua raised her arm to put it around him, drawing him down to lean his head on her shoulder and resting her own atop his. He was perhaps the least selfish boy she'd ever known, or could ever imagine knowing. Whatever he wanted - as long as it wasn't something that would hurt anyone - she would try to let him have. "I'll speak to the Master. I'm sure he'll say it's okay."

She felt him smile against her shoulder, and she smiled herself when he did. "Thanks, Aqua."

"It's all right."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

**More info:** The koi are described from the main picture on the Koi article on Wikipedia, which I found through Google Image Search (I'd link to it, but we all know ff-dot-net and its policy on actual links). Their actions and nature come from the bunch of oversized koi that live in the pond outside my favorite Malaysian restaurant; _any_ time a person walks up, there's always a scaly avalanche of fishy bodies to the surface of the water to put their mouths out and beg. The names obviously come from the Robin Hood legend; I chose it because it's one of the few Disney films that _hasn't_ been featured in KH, but it could be. I figured Eraqus had books on several worlds and the Robin Hood one is just one that no one ever went to. I kind of want them to go there in a future game; that and Tangled would make great settings, in my opinion.

Ven mentions liking both birds and dogs. I can't see him as a cat person (much as I am one myself), but those two were deliberate - birds because of his nature, with the wind and the sky (and a couple other headcanon bits), and dogs because of the _constant_ comparisons to a puppy he receives from not only my friends but me as well. He would be the most earnest and adorable puppy _ever_.

**Symbolism:** I like the idea of Ven being at peace at the edge of the pond because it symbolizes the connection between him, Terra, and Aqua. That spot where he sits to watch the fish is one of the few meeting points between land, sea, and sky in the Land of Departure, and he's growing into the balance of the three. I always pictured him bonding with Terra first and Aqua second, though of course he always liked Aqua - it's just that she was a _girl_. So the idea of him having fish not only was because of Xigbar's throwaway line which much more than likely is just Xigbar making a bad metaphor, but because he's bringing more water into his life, and he and Aqua are bringing more of each other into their lives. It's also why I ended the story in a very similar way to Late at Night, to draw more parallels.


End file.
